


Metastasis

by southietrash



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Bipolar Ian, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Manic Episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 11:46:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10966569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/southietrash/pseuds/southietrash
Summary: Ian's POV of Mickey during on/off manic episodes.





	Metastasis

**Author's Note:**

> Lots of feelings and broken sentences and word vomit. Post-show/non-canon timeline.

I look at you, all scraped knuckles and dried blood - shit that'll never heal because you were born in a war. There's hair in your eyes, a glimmer of homicide, of a fatigue that's reserved for pretending not to notice when I pace those 3am hallways. You live on coffee, black like your eyelashes. Wet, too. You starve yourself of sleep for me, because sleep for me is fleeting lately and you're the only one that can soothe me, can convince me that you'll protect me from demons when my eyes are closed. Only those demons come for me in my dreams and you can't protect me, just rouse me with F-U-C-K knuckles in my hair and a voice that reminds me of how our silk sheets feel when we get tangled in broken moans and thrusts.

I look at you, all weary-eyed and in love - shit that'll never evaporate because you know what falling is like and you'd fling yourself from the roof if you thought my smile might come back. The exorcism comes around again, as it does. Born in a night where I look at you and I can breathe again, can smell the cigarette that hangs from your lips, lips that've touched my collarbone. I forget why I was scared. I swallow my pills dry. I never pray, but I speak in tongues and hymns on my knees for you. There's feeling in my bones. I'm awake at 4am again, but it's to watch _you_ sleep, count _your_ breaths.

\---

It took so long for me to believe that there was a fucking God. I still really don't. What kind of fucking God would hand me this disease on a silver platter, this complete pile of bipolar shit and call it caviar? Not the kind I read about. Not the kind in the pamphlets that were shoved at me when word got around Southside that I was gay. Frank and Monica sure as hell didn't believe in anything that spoke against the needles shoved deep in their arms. Gallaghers didn't fuck around with religion.

But I believe in God now. The kind of God that you breathe that follows my name when I'm going down on you under our covers, when we're so fucking cold that we've practically made a goddamn tent just so I can worship you in our bed. The kind of God that comes out of your mouth at a sleepy 8am when you roll over and tuck your face in my neck, like I'm the one that can save you. And maybe I can. Maybe I already have. I put a lot of stock in that shit, if orgasms and _I love yous_ can write you into heaven. 

I'd like to think I'm more than that, that _we're_ more than that. I don't need some holy bullshit book to know how you like your coffee, or how you like your dick sucked. When my fingers fit between yours, _that's_ God. That's divine. I'll pillowtalk your ass for the rest of my life. You're my heaven, my hell, my purgatory. Putting that ring on your finger meant something to me. It always fucking will, whether it's attached to a fist in my hair or punching me square across the fuckin' jaw.

\---

I used to feel the world go black. I used to feel a moment of clarity before the gut punch. It was like being offered an inhaler before being suffocated. There was no real antidote, no relief until I could breathe again and my hands would stop shaking. And the breaths would come without warning - fuck, it was so daunting when I could breathe. I was happy, only fleetingly, always expecting shit to hit the fan at any second. And then you stilled my shaking hands, lifted the blanket that covered my head. Made me look you in the eye and really look. I hadn't seen anything in years until I met you.

Life without fear was something I'd lost track of. I still don't know, but for different reasons. I'm not consumed with fear of hurting myself, not with struggling to remember who I am. Now? Now it's the fear of losing you, of being less than what you deserve. I'm learning. I'm trying. You're a painting I'd hang on my fucking wall and admire for hours. You care. You never looked at me like I was going to shatter.

You're something that Michelangelo would've spent decades on. 

\---

White socks on left, navys in the middle, blacks on the right. I fill my days with small tasks. Maybe I'll sneak in and rearrange your fucking mind, too, so I'm always there. I'll set up shop in your ribcage, just below your heart. Live there. Tap my way up your bones, one two three. Pump your lungs up down up down for the nights when you’re choked up on emotion for me, quiet pleas to no one when you think I’ve finally fallen asleep. 

Each time is never the same, not some shit you can mark in a calendar for later, not some manic-episode-on-third-of-May sticky note to slap on the fridge. Sometimes I think not knowing is the hell, not the dry hum of radio static that engulfs my mind. Not the blank stare when words won’t come, when _I_ won’t come because lithium ruins hard-ons. But you stay. And you keep the water glass on our nightstand full for me.

\---

We have a night. A real night. It’s rare and we don’t know what to do with ourselves other than tiptoe through it and fuck like we’re finding each other for the first time. You’re coaxing, careful. I’m not even allowed to moan without your slowed pace, your eyes snapping open to search for something that isn’t there, a discomfort I’m not feeling. _Yes, I’m sure. No, I’m fine. Yes, right there. No, don’t stop._

This isn’t a freezer fuck. Not quick, but measured. You’re touching me in spots that are oddly sensitive, maybe because they aren’t _the spots,_ but spots that you touch just to ground yourself to me. Collarbone chin knuckles elbow temple. I’m not annoyed that you’re holding me like a glass vase or that my eyes are wet. I swear to God that I came from your fingers brushing away tears. Came in a strangled, punched-out dry heave. A sob. You unravel, too, head cradled in my neck. 

I feel more tears there.

\---

There’s a symmetry that returns. I don’t pace in front of the knife drawer. You actually return the knives to the drawer. I watch you, light catching the blade from tremors in your fingers that I turn away from. But you trust me. I trust me. My idea of self-harm was always picking fights and needing a punch in the teeth to feel alive. But I find comfort in knowing you’d Ian-proof the house to keep me in one piece.

We laugh. We fuck. We shotgun beers again like I’d only just woken up from a sleep, a 13 day sleep this time. We know how to fall back into each other, but I see your glances, feel the way you drag your fingers down my vertebrae in the middle of the night when I have our sheets bunched up around my waist. You love me. It’s disgusting how normal it’s become, ping-ponging between us and comatose me. But you don’t blame me, don’t complain, don’t ever plant a seed in my mind that grows into elaborate thoughts of you wanting a different Ian.

It’s Thursday. I wake you up with warm breath and parted lips on your shoulder. Tendons in your hand flex around mine, your body stirs all feline and slow. This is good-sleep Mick. Good-sleep Mick that doesn’t have bruises under his eyes and good-sleep Mick that has coffee only once a day now. He doesn’t need to count my breaths or shake me when I have bad dreams.

You roll over, detached from the permanent groove you’ve made where your ass settles in against my hips. I see a smile, real and holy and _fuck._ The lowest hum rumbles deep in your throat, creaky like our top stair you refuse to fix. It drags on when I take to mapping out your chest with tongue and mouth, still background noise when I make it south of your waist. Good-sleep Mick becomes keening-panting Mick. 

We eat breakfast – half-assed eggs and toast with whole-assed juice and pills – and it’s banter and bedroom eyes. We are light. I have you. I love you.

**Author's Note:**

> Because there's such nice feedback, I've started writing a second chapter. Check back over the next few days.


End file.
